Johannesburg - Pule Taukobong is a founding partner at
CRE Venture Capital (CRE VC), a seed-focussed fund which invests in
technology-enabled startup companies in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Taukobong and his partner, Pardon Makumbe, took a shine
to the Cape Town-based mobile payments startup, Yoco, long before it
gained a reputation for over-delivering on its business plan. CRE VC was
one of a handful of investors which backed Yoco with the seed funding
it needed to take the fintech startup from an untested concept to the
successful close of a Series-A investment round last week.
At CRE VC, Taukobong is responsible for the group's deal
flow and performs industry and financial due diligence on both incoming
business plans and targeted companies, while also sitting on the startup
advisory boards of several of their portfolio companies. CRE VC is easily one
of the more active home-grown venture capital firms on the continent and holds
stakes in tech startups like Andela, Esaja, Angani, Flutterwave and most
recently, Yoco.
Read also: Foreign funds to fuel Yoco's expansion
In this brief chat with Andile Masuku, Taukobong unpacks
his approach to identifying sound prospects to fund, speaks to what it takes to
groom promising startup founders for success and addresses some of the
knowledge gaps that persist in terms of Africa’s venture capital scene.
Andile Masuku is a broadcaster and
entrepreneur based in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is the Executive Producer
at AfricanTechRoundup.com. Follow him on Twitter @MasukuAndile and The African
Tech Round-up @africanroundup.